Page 64 of Learning Little Lizzie

“Would you like to make it twenty and writing lines?”

“Oh my god, you’re impossible!” Yanking her chin from his grasp, she paced the kitchen, her agitation with the situation making it impossible for her to be still. “I’m sitting here, listening to you and my parents talk, and realizing all over again that I’m never going to be like… that.”

“Be like what, baby?”

“Smart! Intellectual! I don’t give a flying fuck about the latest essay on colonial whatever the hell it was Mom was talking about. Or the newest scientific discovery that’s got you and Dad drooling all over each other. I’m not like you guys and it’s just one more reminder that I’m never going to be what my parents wanted.”

“What do you think we want you to be, Eliza?”

Whipping around at the sound of her mother’s voice, Eliza paled. “Mom. Dad. You weren’t… I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“No.” Stepping forward, her mother took Eliza’s hands in hers and squeezed. “It very much sounds like something we need to hear. What do you think we want you to be, sweetheart?”

“Smart,” Eliza whispered, tears filling her eyes as the painful truth she’d lived with her entire life finally spilled out of her. “A genius, like you and Dad. I know you wanted someone you could show off and brag about and instead you just got… me. An emotional mess who has to take meds to function like a normal fucking human.”

“Wait.” Now it was her father who stepped forward, the corners of his lips dipping down into a frown. “What medication?”

Shit. This was not how she’d planned on telling them. But it wasn’t looking like she had much of a choice. “ADHD medication. To help me focus. Apparently that’s why I was such a shitty student,” she added with a bitter laugh. “Turns out I’m not lazy, I’m just brok?—”

“Eliza.” Her name was a warning from her Daddy’s lips, and she stiffened at the sound of it. “We’ve discussed this.”

“Sorry.” Closing her eyes, she dragged in a deep breath. “I’m still getting used to not thinking of myself as broken. It makes Samuel pissy.”

A snort of laughter had her eyes flying back open to see her mother slap a hand over her mouth. Her mother cleared her throat, but when she pulled her hand away, a smile still tugged at her lips. “I’m sorry, I just never thought I’d ever hear someone refer to Samuel Eaton as ‘pissy’.”

“Neither did I,” Daddy muttered, and Eliza had a feeling she’d be paying for that one later.

Worth it.

“But back to you, Eliza.” Looking somber once more, her mother squeezed Eliza’s hands. “I think we owe you an apology.”

“What?” She couldn’t possibly have heard correctly.

“The fact you’d think for one second we want you to be anything other than the amazing, beautiful, bright, funny, loving woman you are…” Pausing, her mother swallowed hard. “Obviously we failed you somewhere along the way. And we’re so sorry, sweetheart. We love you, exactly the way you are, and we wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

“Even though I’m not smart like you?”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “I swear if you say you’re not smart one more time, I’m going to let Samuel borrow a guest bedroom to spank your butt.”

Nothing, not even learning that her parents had been secretly abducted by aliens and replaced with kinder, more understanding copies of themselves, would have shocked her more than that statement. “Mom!”

“Oh, don’t you ‘Mom’, me. You really thought you could keep where you’re going to school a secret from your parents? I was already trying to figure out why you were being so tight-lipped about it when I heard the whispers about the college Samuel was teaching at. Didn’t take me long to put two-and-two together, especially when you said you were bringing him home for Christmas.”

She’d been wrong about being forced to wear a diaper. This was the single most embarrassing moment of her life. “Oh my god. I am not having this conversation with you.”

“Fine by me,” her father muttered, his face looking as red as Eliza’s felt.

“Don’t be such prudes.” A smug smile curled the corner of her mother’s lips. “I know what goes on in a place like that. I’ve been reading Golden Angel for years.”

“This is not happening. And Samuel is not… doing that.”

“I beg to differ, little one.” Her Daddy’s voice was strained, like he was holding back laughter. Which he probably was, the big jerk. “Say you’re not smart one more time and I will happily take your mother up on her offer to borrow a guest bedroom.”

“You’re all ridiculous. It’s not even up for debate! You’re all literal geniuses and I’m just… me.”

“My sweet Eliza.” Lifting her hands, her mother cupped Eliza’s face, her expression turning serious. “There is nothing ‘just’ about you. I know we were hard on you growing up, but it’s only because we saw so much in you. But we should have told you more that it didn’t matter what school you went to or what grades you got. All that ever mattered to us was your happiness. And seeing you now, seeing how much your light shines, is all we ever needed. So I don’t want to hear another word about how we wanted a genius for a daughter. You are so much more than either of us ever could have dared to ask for and we love you so much, sweetheart.”

Tears pooled, then slipped down her cheeks. “You mean that?”

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